Missed a meeting? You can find recordings of working group meetings on OCFSN’s Youtube Channel and other materials in our Public Google Drive.

Stay looped into the latest news for each of the working groups by joining the mailing lists: How to Use OCFSN Google Groups.

ICYMI: watch the April meeting recording which included an update on relationship building efforts with the Oregon Farmers Market Association, presentations on Fair Labor from Sarah Sullivan (GGFN) & Kim Johnson (BFH), an introduction to the Good Food Foundation and a presentation from Hannah Kullberg and Kristen Penner exploring opportunities for supporting connecting farmers, hubs and makers.

The upcoming Food Hub Working Group Monthly Meeting on April 23rd at 1pm will feature Maud Powell, leading attendees through her Farmers and Climate Change Workshop. This workshop session will be focused on climate stress and grief, how they affect farmers and ranchers in particular, and strategies for identifying and managing them.

We are hoping to create a slightly more intimate space for this topic and for that reason will be limiting the total attendance to 30 folks. If you missed the email that went out earlier the week, you may still respond to this survey by EOD Thur 4/18 to get on the invite list.

We will be prioritizing attendance for those of you who are either farmers yourselves, or work with farmers in your current role, however we anticipate having some space for folks that aren’t farmers and don’t work directly with farmers - so please respond to the survey if you are interested. We will send out an invite with the meeting link next week. If you do attend, the expectation is that you will participate through the entire session.

In case you missed it, the Veggie Rx working group hosted a workshop earlier this month diving into the Fidelity, Equity and Dignity (FED) Workbook with DAISA. Watch the April 4 workshop recording.

Wednesday, April 24 is the next Veggie Rx Quarterly Meeting. We will be discussing the 1115 Waiver and hosting a Q&A session with OHA's Julie Reeder, Senior Research Analyst with the State of Oregon WIC Program. Add to my calendar.

With over $4 million requested for the $1.6 million available for this round of the Farmer & Rancher Disaster Resilience Grants Program, the grant team and the review committee completed application review and announced awards to applicants on April 16th. It is clear that the need for these climate resilience grants is significant across the state. A grant program report with outcomes and next steps will be announced to the network and general public in May. We are excited to share the impact of this grant program!

Convening:

Registration for the convening is open! We would love for you to join the working group as we connect and collaborate on our shared work supporting Oregon’s small and beginning farmers.

Meetings:

The next Beginning Farmer & Rancher Subgroup meets on May 16th at 10am. Zoom link

Project partners from the RFSP funded Capital Access to Local Farmers (CALF) project have recently met kicking off this exciting project to work with funders and farm TA providers to better help get funding to small farmers across the state. Outcomes from this process will be shared with the working group.

The Community Food Systems at the Legislature Working Group

Please give a big thank you to Summer Wong who has finished her policy internship with OCFSN for the short session. Folks can read Summer’s final report to learn about food systems outcomes from the 2024 short session and how she supported the policy working groups continue their collaborative policy efforts. Thanks for your great work Summer!

Policy, Engagement, Advocacy and Skills (PEAS) Working Group

The OCFSN PEAS Working Group held a Nonprofit Lobbying and Advocacy 101 session on March 7th. Alice Morrison of Friends of Family Farmers presented on how and when nonprofits can lobby and advocate. This was a very informative presentation and discussion! Watch the recording here.